Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Fiji Election 2014- Part 1: Land, Christianity and Racism

Fiji Election 2014- Part 1: Land, Christianity and Racism

PROLOGUE by Thakur Ranjit Singh:

Laisenia Qarase was seen as a clean banker who Frank Bainimarama
appointed as Interim Prime Minister of Fiji in 2000 after Speight coup.
Subsequently, he tasted power, and sided with ethno-nationalist and formed SDL
Party and won 2001 and 2006 election. He was removed by Bainimarama on 5
December, 2006 because of his actions that divided the nation, his racists
policies and tendency to be leader of i-Taukei only.

LAESENIA QARASE, former Prime Minister of Fiji who was appointed by Frank Bainimarama in 2000, and deposed by him in 2006, upon numerous warning to abandon his racist stance and ethno-nationalistic policies. Now, he wants a Christian State and has again gone back to the gutter of racist divisive politics, as reported by Fiji Live. Qarase is de-facto leader of SODELPA party which is headed by his former equally racist Minister of Education, and sister-in-law of Ratu Mara.

In the coming election, he is leading SODELPA- a re-incarnation of
his racist SDL Party. In the campaign this week, as reported by Fiji Village,
he told people that he believed that God had given Fiji to the Itaukei and not
to any other race. He said the reason why he wanted people of other races not
to be equal with the Itaukei is because of his belief that God has given the
land to the forefathers of the Itaukei people.

Qarase has also come out and said that he wanted Fiji to be a Christian state
because Christianity brought civilization to Fiji. It is this type of blinkered
and jaundiced leaders that Bainimarama wanted removed from politics. Fiji in a
sense is blessed that we have a military which is capable of removing democracy
which become mad and rabid.

Read on observation by our Guest Writer, Rajendra Prasad, on the upcoming election.

Part 1:Land,
Christianity and Racism

By Guest Writer: Rajendra Prasad, Auckland, NZ.

RAJENDRA PRASAD, Guest Writer for FIJI PUNDIT blog site. He just returned from Fiji and gives a feedback on what he saw in preparedness for the election 2014.

I spent a week in Fiji (9th to 16th
July) and saw a nation on the move to claim its place among the democratic
nations of the world. On September 17, 2014 Fiji will go to the polls to elect
its first Parliament after the military coup of December 5, 2006. It will be
held under the new 2013 Constitutions, which is strikingly different to all the
previous constitutions. The 1970, 1990 and 1997 Constitution advocated ethnic
voting whereas the 2013 Constitution has removed this provision and every
citizen of Fiji is now on one roll. The basic precept of such provision is “one
person, one vote, one value” for all. Equality and dignity of every citizen is
the rallying cry of this Constitution.

Remarkably,
a departure from the norm has gone down well with the majority of people except
those who exploited ethnicity to rob their way to power. Ethnic voting kept the
nation divided, giving way to racism to flourish. Multiracialism and
multiculturalism existed in name.

There are those who laud the Bainimarama Government for
the changes and work it has accomplished in eight years of its rule. Many
believe that Fiji’s rotten democracy needed drastic measures for drastic
change. The Fijian democracy was a cover
for autocracy to prevail by the chosen few who benefitted from the state of
anarchy that became the core character of the nation. The Bainimarama
Government, though unelected, has given the nation a new taste of what
democracy, equality and dignity entails. At least the common citizen feels
that he/she is part of a modern, secular, inclusive and equal society and not
ruled by racist bigots. Interestingly, security of indigenous land is never an
issue except in the period preceding an election. It is used by the racist
bigots to camouflage truth, as it fires the emotions of indigenous people on a
non-existent threat and they vote en-masse to their ‘so-called champions’. Yet,
it has been revealed that, when in power, they had insidiously converted land
at Momi and Denarau to freehold.

FRANK BAINIMARAMA -though un-elected, he has given the nation a new taste of what democracy, equality and dignity entails. He is heading Fiji First Party in election 2014

But let us dispassionately review the land issue. Let
there be no illusion, it is implied that such threat comes from Indo-Fijians.
They have been in Fiji for 135 years and in this period they have not
appropriated an inch of indigenous owned land. However, many had leased such
land but when the leases expired or upon extra-legal action taken by
landowners, largely at the instigation of their leaders, they vacated such land
without resistance or demand for compensation. Today, most of such land is
lying fallow, compounding the poverty of landowners whose rental income has
ceased forever. Further, since
independence for 36 years (1970-2006) the iTaukei elite have been in power for
35 years and yet they did nothing to liberate their people from poverty but
always blamed Indo-Fijians for it.

Bizarrely, they pursued policies to marginalize and
dispossess Indo-Fijians so that the two communities gained parity in
destitution when they should have promoted the prosperity of both to
economically benefit the nation. The current Government is advocating
prosperity for all and equitable sharing and distribution of resources. Rental
income will no longer be shared by others, as in the past, which left peanuts
for the landowners. They are now being encouraged to lease their land through
the TLTB or Land Bank to enable them to receive regular rental income. Indeed,
productive use of land resources by landowners themselves or tenants is in the
best interest of everyone. God gave this
vital gift to humanity to use it for its livelihood and prosperity. Those who
own such resources should not squander the opportunities that abound.

Land and religion in Fiji comprise the most volatile
fuel to kindle the racial conflagration. Religion is now also being dragged by
the advocates of racism in a desperate bid to win the election. Most, if not
all, project themselves as devout Christians. Yet, Christianity is a religion
that is anchored to love. Christianity without love equates to heathenism. People who use Christianity to pursue their
racist agendas will struggle to make it through the narrow gates. In
Christianity, it is not the cover but content and adherence to Bible’s noble
precepts that identify Christians. Those who use malice, hatred and violence,
the weapons of the devil, to justify the unjustifiable demean Christianity. Indeed, there is no point in declaring
Fiji a Christian State when those who advocate it hold the sword of violence to
achieve their goals and objectives. Indeed, Christianity could have been
effectively used to rout racism in Fiji; instead it has been used as a weapon against
the lost who shun it as a religion bereft of love, tolerance and goodwill. They
also rightly claim that today, in Fiji, more Christians are in prison than
those whom they label as pagans. Could this also be attributed them, as iTaukei
poverty is?

Indeed,
racism in Fiji is a British legacy. Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna had famously said that
the two races were locked in their racial kennels and they barked and snarled
at each other. He knew it but did
nothing to destroy the kennels that the colonial masters had constructed.
With passage of time, racial compartmentalization, as presaged by the British
consolidated. It was the worst gift the British gave to independent Fiji.
Rightly, it should have been rejected, which is a sad commentary on the vision
of leaders of that era who, by accepting it, chose racism to shape the destiny
of the nation. The result is before our eyes, as a nation once considered the
jewel of the Pacific has become the pariah of the Pacific. Only beneficiaries
were the leaders who relished power, position and perks, leaving the masses to
scramble for the crumbs. A nation with the potential to become economically
rich and a flag bearer for the island nations in the Pacific became a pauper.
But the parasitic attachment of its leaders to feed their greed remained
persistent. [To be continued…

Sheer lack of remorse and moral conscience of some of the leaders, convicted for abuse of office or violation of taxation laws: Some leaders playing key role in election 2014. [ Fiji Sun photo]

TO BE CONTINUED.....Fiji
Election 2014- Part 2:Controls on Media and Divisive Politics promoted better race
relations…What amused and also saddened me was the sheer lack of remorse
and moral conscience of some of the leaders, convicted for abuse of office or
violation of taxation laws, as they campaigned for their political parties.
They moved around defiant and dismissive of their past when common decency
expected them to leave the public domain.